The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon is the second expansion pack for the 2002 video game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, developed by Bethesda Game Studios and released for Windows in 2003. The expansion was later released as part of the Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition for the Xbox in 2004. The expansion adds a landmass to the game, Solstheim, a setting modelled on Norse mythology. The primary questline of Bloodmoon involves the investigation of the Bloodmoon Prophecy that foretells the return of the demigod Hircine. A secondary features a new faction, the East Empire Company, which tasks the player to establish a mining colony. Bloodmoon also provides the player with the ability to become a werewolf, a feature closely embedded in the main storyline and quests. The expansion features more detailed environments, including weather shaders such as snowfall and blizzards.
Bloodmoon was developed over six months with a stated objective of making a more open-ended expansion focused on action and exploration, in contrast to the closed design of the previous expansion, The Elder Scrolls III: Tribunal. Design of the game's questlines reflected a more open-ended ethos, with the use of branching questlines reflecting player choices. Upon release, Bloodmoon received positive reviews from critics, with praise directed to the expansion's highly distinctive visual design and landscape and the design of its branching questlines, particularly the East Empire Company questline, with criticism directed towards the limitations of gameplay when playing as a werewolf and various performance issues and bugs. Solstheim, the setting of Bloodmoon, would return as the primary setting for an Elder Scrolls game in Dragonborn, an expansion to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim released in 2012.
Gameplay
Gameplay in Bloodmoon is largely identical to that in Morrowind, with the game functioning as an extension of quests and open-ended locations to explore. In contrast to the first expansion, Tribunal, which added a city separate from the world map consisting of interior cells, Bloodmoon adds an island to the original world map. Players access the Bloodmoon content and questline by asking non-player characters about the "latest rumors", directing them to a ship that transports them to Solstheim, or alternately locating the ship themselves.
Story
Bloodmoon introduces two major questlines: a main quest and a factional quest for the East Empire Company. and was intended as the last expansion for Morrowind. The concept of Bloodmoon was raised by executive producer Todd Howard, who presented the three core ideas of "werewolves, Nords and snow" to form the basis of the expansion. Bloodmoon was designed as an action-oriented expansion, with a focus on designing an environment filled with new dungeons, creatures and loot. This approach was pursued to contrast with the design of Tribunal, which was conceived as a political drama, The addition of the expansion's remote island setting of Solstheim was designed to minimise interference with the core game and user modifications. cited by the developers as the most requested feature for inclusion in Morrowind from players. Designer Mark Nelson recounted that the implementation of werewolves in the game was the centre of the expansion's design, prompting the "large-scale" creation of a branching questline to differentiate players who did and did not choose to become a werewolf. with a gold master of the game finalised in May and released on June 3, 2003, in the United States and June 27 in Europe. Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition, which included the original game and its expansions, Tribunal and Bloodmoon, was released for PC and Xbox in October 2003.
Reception
Bloodmoon was received positively by reviewers, with review aggregator Metacritic indicating the game received "Generally favorable reviews" with an average score of 85 out of 100 based on 21 reviews.